


Home

by Hibernia1



Series: Old age verse [2]
Category: House M.D.
Genre: Home, M/M, Old Age Verse, Sad, Vascular Dementia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-24
Updated: 2015-10-24
Packaged: 2018-04-27 21:14:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,104
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5064388
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hibernia1/pseuds/Hibernia1
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>House and Wilson are still together in their seventies. House isn't as sharp as he used to be, and that's putting it mildly. Part II of the Old Age Verse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Home

**Author's Note:**

> So, I've been posting House fan fic on LJ before (ages ago), and now that I've got an AO3 account anyway, I decided to put them here, too.

“Once you’ve put me in a home, will you still visit sometimes?” House asked conversationally.

He was sitting on the couch and didn’t bother to look away from the TV. Wilson was answering e-mails and almost dropped his laptop upon registering House’s question.

“What?”

“You heard me.”

“I heard you, but I haven’t got the faintest idea of what you’re talking about. What makes you think I’m going to put you in a home?”

House looked at him and Wilson held his breath when he saw how angry House was.

“I’m not completely senile yet,” House barked, “I checked the history on your laptop. You visited homepages of several nursing homes in the vicinity.”

Wilson shook his head.

“You’re paranoid.”

“You can’t deny checking out homes. It’s right there in the history.”

“I’m not denying anything. Besides, since you’ve been spying on my internet-habits for as long as I’ve known you and I’m well aware of that, don’t you think I would have cleared the history if I had wanted to keep this a secret?”

House shrugged.

“You probably thought I wouldn’t find out.”

Wilson closed his laptop, got up from his chair and took it to the couch. He sat down next to House, who shot him a dirty look.

“Don’t try to distract me,” he warned Wilson, “when did you plan on telling me?”

“Listen,” Wilson said, “you jumped to the wrong conclusion about those websites and I’m really sorry. If I had known you would actually consider me capable of putting you in a home I’d have told you what I was looking for. As it is, that thought never crossed my mind, so I decided to finish my research before talking to you about what I’m thinking of.”

“You’re lying.”

“I’m not.”

“There’s no reason to look at nursing homes’ websites if you don’t want to put someone in those homes.”

“Actually, there is,” Wilson said. He opened his laptop and went to the history.

“See?” House said accusingly, “those names alone are enough to make me want to puke! Meadowview! Do I look like a bull? And there, look, The Chateau. Ha! Do they really think anyone’s gonna mistake a nursing home for a castle? You have to be very demented for that, let me tell you.”

“Yes,” Wilson agreed, “but it’s irrelevant, because, as I was saying, I wasn’t checking out those websites because I want you to live in one of these facilities.”

He accessed one of the sites and clicked on a link saying ‘cognitive training’.

“Read this,” he told House, placing the laptop upon his lap.

“No.”

“Fine, I’ll read it to you,” Wilson said.

He started reading about how one of the nursing homes had a Cognitive Training Program that was open for non-resident elderly individuals as well and that consisted of a fifteen-session training for memory, reasoning and speed of processing. There were follow-up sessions too, and everything was supervised by a geriatric psychiatrist.

“I was looking for something like this,” Wilson explained, “I did a lot of research lately and it seems that cognitive training for older adults may help slow down the decline of daily functioning abilities.”

House kept his eyes on the TV and didn’t say a word.

“House?” Wilson tried. “My daily functioning abilities are fine.”

“Well,” Wilson started warily, knowing he was treading on eggshells and not liking it one bit, “I’m not quite sure how these abilities are usually evaluated, but I can imagine a geriatric psychiatrist might be inclined to disagree with you there.”

“I hate psychiatrists.”

“I know.”

“I especially hate geriatric psychiatrists. They always assume everyone they meet is deaf. And their MESS is totally outdated.”

“Their mess?”

“Yeah, that idiotic method they use to see if you have Alzheimer’s.”

“That’s called MMSE. Stands for Mini Mental State Exam,” Wilson said, “and just because you didn’t get such a great score when you took one doesn’t mean it’s outdated.”

“It totally does. Besides, I flunked on purpose. And I do not have Alzheimer’s.”

“No,” Wilson agreed, “but you do have vascular dementia. Which in some ways is even worse.”

House threw him a quick glance.

“Was that meant to cheer me up? Because if it was, it’s not working.”

Wilson immediately felt guilty.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to depress you. You’ve been doing really well lately, and with a bit of luck you’ll stay stable for a long time.”

House didn’t respond.

“And to help you to do even better, it might be a good idea to consider giving that cognitive training program a chance,” Wilson said after hesitating for a while.

“Did you really check out those sites to look for a lame program like that?” House asked in response, looking at Wilson piercingly.

“Yes,” Wilson said, “I swear. There’s absolutely no other reason for me to look at nursing homes’ websites. I meant what I said earlier, House, I won’t put you in a home.”

“Not ever?”

“Not ever.”

“Not even when I can’t remember your name anymore?”

“Let’s hope it won’t come to that, but no, not even then.”

House seemed to think this over.

“What if you get sick?”

“I’ll hire a nurse to take care of the both of us. Or several nurses. Whatever it takes.”

“What if you go senile too?”

“Then we’ll go to a facility together.”

“There’s no way a home will take a gay couple.”

“You’d be surprised. And I was kidding. We’ll stay here, get some good nurses. Anyway, let’s not dwell on ‘what ifs’, okay?”

House sighed.

“But what if…” he started, but Wilson gently covered House’s mouth.

“Don’t. Please. Stop racking your brain with worrying about stuff that’s not going to happen.”

House frowned, but then his face relaxed into a grin.

“You’d rather have me racking my brain doing some sort of pointless training, right?”

Wilson laughed.

“Well, yes,” he then admitted, “are you willing to give it a try?”

“I’ll think about it,” House promised graciously, “as long as I get to go home with you after each session.”

“That’s a promise,” Wilson said, “your home is right here with me, and that won’t ever change.”

House, in a rare manifestation of affection, leaned over to kiss Wilson and Wilson pulled him close. They stayed in that position for a long time until House tapped Wilson on his leg.

“What’s for dinner?”

Wilson smiled broadly, because this mundane question told him he’d managed to convince House of the truth so he could stop worrying. Which was good, because Wilson did more than enough worrying for the both of them.


End file.
